Download week six handouts, history 302

William Henry Seward—1801–72, American statesman, b. Florida, Orange co., N.Y.
Early Career—A graduate (1820) of Union College, he was admitted to the bar in 1822 and established
himself as a lawyer in Auburn, N.Y., which he made his lifelong home. He was active in the AntiMasonic party and later joined the Whig party. Seward and his close personal and political friend,
Thurlow Weed, became the two most influential Whigs in New York state. A state senator from 1830 to
1834, he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship in 1834. In 1838, however, he won that office, and he
was reelected in 1840. As governor, Seward worked for educational reforms and internal improvements;
he also secured legislation to better the position of immigrants and to protect fugitive slaves. He returned
to his law practice in 1843.
Senator—Seward was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1849. Reelected in 1855, he was one of the Senate’s
most prominent members in the troubled years preceding the Civil War. A genial, gregarious man with
intellectual interests, he was generally well liked, even by his political opponents.
Seward was an uncompromising foe of slavery, and, although he apparently tempered his public
expressions so as not to alienate votes, he nevertheless made two remarks that became catchphrases of the
antislavery forces. Voicing his opposition to the Compromise of 1850 in the Senate, he said (Mar. 11,
1850), “there is a higher law than the Constitution which regulates our authority over the domain.” In a
speech at Rochester on Oct. 25, 1858, he declared that there would exist “an irrepressible conflict” until
the US became either all slave or all free.
With the disintegration of the Whig party, Seward and Weed joined (1855) the new Republican party.
Prominent as he was, Seward, despite (or possibly because of) the efforts of Weed’s machine, was never
able to secure the Republican presidential nomination. His friendship toward immigrants, especially the
Irish, alienated members of the former Know-Nothing movement within the Republican party.
Secretary of State—In 1861, Seward became Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln, and many
expected him to be the real power in the administration. He revealed his own desire to dominate the
President in a peculiar memorandum (Apr. 1, 1861) to Lincoln in which he proposed waging war against
most of Europe so as to unite the nation. Seward also did some unwarranted meddling during the Fort
Sumter crisis. After the Civil War broke out, however, he showed himself an able statesman, although it
took all of Lincoln’s ingenuity to keep both Seward and his rival, Salmon P. Chase, eternally ambitious
for the presidency, in the same cabinet. Seward’s handling of delicate matters of diplomacy with Great
Britain, particularly in the Trent Affair, was notably adept. He also protested French intervention in
Mexico and after the Civil War helped bring an end to it.
The plot of John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Lincoln also included a stabbing attack on Seward, but he
recovered from his wounds and retained his cabinet position under the new President, Andrew Johnson.
He supported Johnson’s Reconstruction policy and, like the President, was roundly denounced by the
radical Republicans. Seward’s most important act in this administration was the purchase of Alaska from
Russia in 1867. His foresight was not generally acknowledged, however, and Alaska was long popularly
called “Seward’s folly.” He also tried to purchase the two most important islands in the Danish West
Indies (the Virgin Islands), but the Senate refused to approve his action.
(http://www.bartleby.com/65/se/Seward-W.html)
Gideon Welles—1802–78, American statesman, b. Glastonbury, Conn. He was (1826–36) editor and part
owner of the Hartford Times, one of the first New England papers to support Andrew Jackson. An
organizer of the Jacksonian forces in Connecticut, Welles served in the state legislature (1827–35). He
was three times elected state comptroller of public accounts and was postmaster of Hartford. He was also
chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing for the U.S. navy (1846–49). Leaving the Democratic
party on the slavery issue, he helped found (1856) the Hartford Evening Press, a Republican paper, and in
1861 became Secretary of the Navy in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet. Incorruptible, efficient, and something
of a curmudgeon, Welles built the powerful Union navy of the Civil War. The construction of the Monitor
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and the other ironclads resulted largely from his support, and the victorious admirals David C. Farragut
and David D. Porter were men of his choice. One of the first to recognize Lincoln’s essential greatness, he
thoroughly disliked some of his cabinet colleagues, notably William H. Seward and Edwin M. Stanton.
Welles was a moderate who favored Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan and, retaining his post under Andrew
Johnson, stood by the President in his struggle with the radical Republicans in Congress. He returned to
the Democratic party in 1868. Welles wrote Lincoln and Seward (1874), and his salty diary (ed. by H. K.
Beale, 3 vol., 1960) is of immense value to the historian.
(http://www.bartleby.com/65/we/Welles-G.html)
Montgomery Blair—1813–83, U.S. Postmaster General (1861–64), b. Franklin co., Ky., son of Francis
P. Blair (1791–1876). He resigned from the army in 1836 after serving against the Seminole and settled in
St. Louis as the legal and political protégé of Senator Thomas H. Benton. A successful lawyer and mayor
of St. Louis (1842–43), he moved to Washington, D.C., where he was the first U.S. solicitor in the Court
of Claims and made many appearances before the U.S. Supreme Court, including one as counsel for Scott
in the famous Dred Scott Case. His antislavery views brought him to the Republican party, and he became
Postmaster General in the Lincoln cabinet. To appease the radicals in the cabinet, the President forced his
resignation before the election of 1864. Opposed to radical Republicanism, he returned to the Democratic
party and was one of Samuel J. Tilden’s counsel in the disputed election of 1876.
(http://www.bartleby.com/65/bl/BlairM.html)
Nullification crisis, nullification, in U.S. history, a doctrine expounded by the advocates of extreme
states' rights. It held that states have the right to declare null and void any federal law that they deem
unconstitutional. The doctrine was based on the theory that the Union is a voluntary compact of states and
that the federal government has no right to exercise powers not specifically assigned to it by the U.S.
Constitution. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions declared (1799) nullification to be the rightful
remedy by the states for all unauthorized acts done under the pretext of the Constitution. A closely
reasoned reinforcement to the doctrine of nullification was set forth–in response to the tariff of 1828,
which favored Northern interests at the expense of the South–by John C. Calhoun in his South Carolina
Exposition (1828). The strong pro-Union stand of President Jackson brought forth further remonstrances
from Southern leaders. After enactment of the tariff act of 1832 South Carolina called a state convention,
which passed (1832) the ordinance of nullification. This ordinance declared the tariff laws null and void,
and a series of enactments in South Carolina put the state in a position to resist by force any attempt of the
federal government to carry the tariff act into operation. President Jackson in reply dramatically issued a
strong proclamation against the nullifiers, and a force bill was introduced into the U.S. Senate to give the
President authority to use the armed forces if necessary to execute the laws. Jackson, however, felt that
the South had a real grievance and, behind his show of force, encouraged friends of compromise, led by
Henry Clay, to prepare a bill that the South would accept. This compromise tariff was rushed through
Congress, and after its passage (1833) the South Carolina state convention reassembled and formally
rescinded the ordinance nullifying the tariff acts. To preserve its prerogative it adopted a new ordinance
nullifying the force bill. But the issue was not pressed further until the election of Abraham Lincoln,
when the doctrine of secession was brought to the foreground.
John Crittenden
John Tyler
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Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
Fellow-Citizens of the US:
In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and
to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the US to be taken by the President "before he
enters on the execution of this office."
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there
is no special anxiety or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican
Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any
reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed
and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I
do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar
declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as
a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of
each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment
exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our
political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any
State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive
evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise
endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the
Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for
whatever cause—as cheerfully to one section as to another.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now
read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall
in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what
we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to
the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases
come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the
effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep
good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State
authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little
consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his
oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane
jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might it not be
well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that
"the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution
or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to
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be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and
abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having them
held to be unconstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During
that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch
of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all
this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and
peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual.
Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no
government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the
express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it
except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again: If the US be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely,
can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may
violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is
perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was
formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of
Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and
engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the
declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less
perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that
resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the
authority of the US are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of
my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be
faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so
far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some
authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared
purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon
the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places
belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these
objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the
US in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the
Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the
strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be
so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible the
people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection.
The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change
to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised, according to circumstances
actually existing and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of
fraternal sympathies and affections.
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of
any pretext to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those,
however, who really love the Union may I not speak?
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Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its
memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a
step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while
the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk the commission of so fearful a
mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any
right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted
that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly
written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should
deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution;
certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of
individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the
Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a
provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can
anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall
fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May
Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect
slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into
majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.
There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority
in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a
minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For
instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as
portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being
educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new union as to produce harmony
only and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional
checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is
the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that,
rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme
Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that
suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments
of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still
the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never
become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same
time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole
people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation
between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent
practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault
upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before
them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is
wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the
Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law
can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body
of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be
perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign
slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while
fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
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Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor
build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and
beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face
to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that
intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier
than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends?
Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you
cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of
the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to
dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of
having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the
rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the
instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being
afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it
allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject
propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as
they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which
amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never
interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid
misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say
that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express
and irrevocable.
The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix
terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as
such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to
transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or
equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the
Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South,
that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public
servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own
hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of
wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost
by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take
deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as
are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own
framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it
were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for
precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this
favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.
The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have
no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve,
protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have
strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the
Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html
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